


This Time

by RisuAlto



Series: Tumblr Ask Prompt Fills [19]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Hugs, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Reunion, sentimentality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 17:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuAlto
Summary: And as they began to turn their backs, one by one, a memory struck.  How many times had Byleth seen this?  Five years (apparently) of dreams, and how many of them had ended with their students vanishing into the depths of some fog that could never be reached?“Wait,” Byleth heard someone say, only realizing it had been their own voice when the receding footsteps fell silent.
Series: Tumblr Ask Prompt Fills [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547980
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinyivyleaves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyivyleaves/gifts).

> This prompt was, "Group hug."

“On that note,” Claude was saying, “let’s move this reunion party somewhere else.”

Byleth wasn’t paying attention. Not really. The images of the students’ faces stood in stark contrast to the grey, cold ruins around them, highlighted by the fresh daylight, and _that_ was the image that had captured Byleth’s attention. Hilda’s scarlet gloves, the feather affixed to Ignatz’s cloak, Leonie’s new pauldron that gleamed like onyx, Raphael’s hair that had somehow become even more of a mess, Marianne’s braids that had become less of one, Lysithea’s golden ornaments, Lorenz’s _Goddess-damned rose, _Claude’s eyes, glittering like cut glass, sharp even in the softness of dawn—

The Golden Deer were bright, colorful, and so very much alive amidst a place trodden to ashes by death. It was surreal. Like a dream.

And as they began to turn their backs, one by one, a memory struck. How many times had Byleth seen this? Five years (apparently) of dreams, and how many of them had ended with their students vanishing into the depths of some fog that could never be reached?

“Wait,” Byleth heard someone say, only realizing it had been their own voice when the receding footsteps fell silent.

Something tugged at Byleth’s arm, and they looked down to see their own hand wrapped around Claude’s wrist. “Huh?” he asked, just as confused as Byleth, looking up into their face. “What is it, Teach?”

“You’re all here,” Byleth breathed, stepping closer.

Everyone had stopped, now, but Hilda, who rolled her eyes and moved up to Claude’s side. “Well, yeah,” she said. “We made a promise, didn’t we?”

“I know—” said Byleth, but the words caught in their throat and they swallowed hard before trying again. “I dreamt of this day, I think, when I fell. It always felt so real, right until—”

_—until you vanished. Is it real, this time?_ Byleth squeezed Claude’s wrist once, hoping it would be enough when their words were failing. _Am I really here?_

“Aw, Professor…!” Raphael sniffed, closing the gap between them in one long stride. Byleth barely had a chance to breathe before Raphael had caught them, Hilda, and Claude in an embrace. The three of them were squished chest-to-side-to-chest against the front of Raphael’s tunic.

Hilda squirmed almost immediately. “Ack—Raphael, warn a girl—” Byleth thought, surely, she was going to break the embrace, but instead, she merely freed an arm and reached behind her to snatch Marianne’s cloak. “You, too, losers; get in here,” she huffed.

Leonie was already on it, slinging an arm around Byleth’s neck as she muttered, “I’m glad we didn’t lose you, too.”

A flash of green to their right told Byleth that Ignatz had wormed his way between them and Raphael, and though he couldn’t move his arms, his forehead was warm against their shoulder. Behind them, two small hands twisted into their cloak as Lysithea settled against their back. The only one missing was—

Lorenz locked eyes with Byleth the moment they opened theirs, only to quickly look away before stepping forward. Sighing in a manner that Byleth could only describe as put-upon (yet betrayed by the flush in his cheeks), Lorenz put his arms up around the outside of the hug—one across Leonie’s back, and the other across Claude’s. “Not a word, Riegan,” he muttered.

“It’s a special case,” Claude agreed lightly before turning back to Byleth again. One of his hands was still trapped in Byleth’s grip between their bodies, and Byleth could feel a tingling numbness setting in. 

Still, as they watched even Marianne relax into Hilda’s back with a soft smile, Byleth couldn’t help feeling like never moving again was a perfectly reasonable course of action. “It’s a miracle,” she said.

“I was so scared I’d never see you again,” Lysithea breathed. Byleth suddenly found it difficult to do so, remembering abruptly that any one of these children (_no more children now than you,_ whispered her mind) could have died before they ever woke up. Lysithea especially.

“What matters is that you made it,” Ignatz said. Byleth felt his arm shift to touch Lysithea’s shoulder.

“We all did,” said Raphael, and _finally_, Byleth’s breath came easy again. No matter how many times they had dreamed otherwise, they’d all kept their promise. 

As though sealing it, Claude pushed his and Byleth’s still-connected hands against the center of Byleth’s chest. The tap of their knuckles together felt almost like a heartbeat. Byleth looked away from their hands to Claude’s face, breathing in until their lungs were full to bursting. Claude winked with all his usual teasing charm, but the smile on his lips was the most sincere Byleth had ever seen.

“Welcome home, my friend,” he said.

Byleth smiled. _This is real. _“I’m back.”


End file.
